As the end of 2017 approaches (scary, we know), we’ve been reflecting on our year here at TOTM and decided to put together a year in review. We are so grateful for each one of you and this community of inspiring period pioneers you have helped us build. So what did 2017 look like for TOTM? Let’s take a look.
Our exclusive charity partner:
As you know, we are all for vagina talk. We love empowering people to be kinder to their vaginas or to be open and say the word vagina. We have been so excited to partner with a like-minded charity throughout 2017, The Gynaecological Cancer Fund. GCF have been our exclusive charity partner throughout the year and share our passion for women’s health.
Throughout the year, 10p from every pack sold online has been donated to GCF. These donations help fund research into improved diagnosis and treatment of the five gynaecological cancers. Each time you have purchased a box from TOTM, you have helped an amazing cause. Together, we have increased awareness of these cancers.
Giving back:
The Lady Garden Campaign is the fundraising arm of GCF. Our team had so much fun taking part in the annual Lady Garden run this year. We had the pleasure of having Vanessa White and Olivia Cox join us. All together we raised an amazing £1,148 and were in the top 5% of fundraisers for May. A HUGE thank you to everyone who supported us and donated! Every penny raised goes to The Royal Marsden and Dr Susana Banerjee, towards her groundbreaking work into precision therapies.
Growing team:
This year, we welcomed two new period pioneers to the TOTM marketing team. In February, Fiona joined as our Marketing Executive and in March Alex joined taking on our Social and Content. We also had a new face in our operations team, as Harry joined taking on the packing. Hopefully we will be welcoming more new faces in 2018! We can’t forget our new office pup Lola joining the team, also known as Mole.
#TalkingPeriods:
Our #TalkingPeriods campaign was a highlight of 2017. Over the period of two weeks a group of bloggers shared their period tips and tricks. They also shared honest, personal and real period stories. We launched this campaign to show people that periods are natural, normal and people shouldn’t be silenced for talking about them!
It was incredible to watch a community of inspiring and empowering women come together and support one another. This community used their voices to shake things up and help break down the taboo that surrounds menstruation. This is so important and something we will continue to encourage. This campaign also gave us an opportunity to share real stories from inspirational people who wrote for us on TOTM.com. One of our key missions as a brand is to tackle taboos, raise awareness and normalise ‘period talk’. It you haven’t done so already catch up with these amazing stories from Laura (PMDD), Tanya (Endometriosis), Ashleigh (PCOS) and Phoebee (TSS). Keep an eye out for our 2018 campaigns…
Donations to Anguilla:
This year the beautiful island of Anguilla was devastated by 2 powerful hurricanes. According to an assessment by the government in the wake of Hurricane Irma, there were $3.5,000,000,000 in damages. The hurricanes destroyed buildings throughout the island, changing people’s lives in the wake of the destruction. At times such as these people affected by the devastation rely on help, support and crucial supplies.
Anguilla born Melissa Mussington contacted us during this time, with a heartfelt email explaining how she was gathering supplies to aid the people of Anguilla. In her message she wrote, “Women will be women every month regardless of what catastrophe is going on around them, and this is no exception for losing their entire homes.”
To support Melissa and help the people desperately needing supplies we packed up 2 large boxes full of TOTM pads, tampons and liners. Melissa then took these items out to Anguilla. She is now making this a regular movement to help young girls in schools – and that’s why we love Melissa!
Quote from Melissa:
“Thanks again so much for your contribution towards Anguilla during the massive time of need. It was a great start to what I would like to make a regular movement to help the young girls in our schools.“
Donating to fantastic causes:
At TOTM, as part of our Period Powerful 2018 we want to help people by giving them power over their period. Everyone deserves to menstruate with dignity and this is something that we are passionate about and have been supporting throughout 2017. We’ve been supporting causes like the one mentioned above but have also supported fantastic causes in the UK. We’ve donated products to homeless shelters collecting for the local community that they support, aided the Leicester University Feminist Society with their period care donation drive and we also sent products to the Chernobyl Children’s Project (UK) who do amazing work supporting children of all ages up to 19 years old. This donation was organised by the lovely Julie Raffety who contacted us to organise a donation for this excellent project.
This year we have also been inspired by Amika George, who started the #FreePeriods Movement campaigning to give period care to young girls from low-income families. To raise awareness, we worked with the wonderful Emily Warburton (English Ems) who took over TOTM’s Instragram to document the #FreePeriods Protest on 20th December. We also worked with Moody to donate products throughout December to #FreePeriods. We’ve also scheduled another donation drop to #FreePeriods in January 2018. This movement has the power to help girls across the UK and we urge you to find out more, support and help pioneers like Amika make a difference.
The launch of TOTM Perks:
Our subscription service got a little makeover this year as we launched our TOTM perks. Alongside our organic period care we wanted to give our subscribers a few extras now and then as a lovely little surprise. This might be a little treat enclosed inside those sugarcane packages that land through your letterbox, or an exclusive promo code landing in emails. We like to mix things up!
This year we launched our perks scheme, starting with a partnership with vegan, ayurvedic skincare brand, Urban Veda. Our subscribers received 4 sachets of Urban Veda skincare in their August orders for a pre-or post-period pampering treat! In addition to Urban Veda we’ve worked with some fantastic brands to deliver these perks including Miss Patisserie, Raw gaia, Sweet Revolution, Macacha, my Teatime and People Tree! More perks arranged for 2018 so watch this space…
Special thanks also to all the brands who have worked with us on our 2017 Instagram giveaways! Including, Conscious Chocolate, One Earth Organics, Mr Organic, Made by Coopers, FUR, Tints of Nature, Optiat Skincare, Skin and Tonic and Organic Livity. Our first 2018 giveaway launches 14th January (keep an eye out!).
All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the support of you. So thank you from all of us for making this possible. Let’s continue to be period powerful. Let’s not be afraid to talk about our periods; continue to raise awareness/provide support for menstrual health conditions; help those in need menstruate with dignity and of course continue to raise awareness about the benefits of organic. Merry Christmas from team TOTM x
